DPCC Co-Chair Cicilline: Our Number One Priority is to Improve the Lives of Working People

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Congressman David Cicilline, Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy & Communications Committee (DPCC), appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson to discuss A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future—a bold, new Democratic economic agenda that was released Monday. Below are excerpts from the interview. Click here to watch the video.

“This agenda, which we announced today, is an agenda both from the House and the Senate that came about as a result of doing a lot of listening, listening to our members who are home every weekend listening to their constituents and really understanding that it’s important that voters and the American people hear what Democrats are committed to do to raise people’s wages, to create good paying jobs so that people have a bright future. This better deal is really about how do we increase incomes, how do we reduce the cost of people's expenses in health care, in child care and the things that people spend money on. This is a very bold agenda that will do that.”

“I think you're going to hear Democrats continue to talk about it, it's our number one priority to do all that we can to improve the lives of working people. We are obviously in the minority, but it's important for the American people to know that if you elect Democrats, if you give us the responsibility of leadership, we will focus on raising incomes, rebuilding the middle class [and] reducing the cost in people's lives. It’s not just a message, this is about our agenda. The point of putting together this Democratic agenda was so that we can more effectively make our case to the American people of what we stand for [and] what we are fighting for. You’re going to hear a lot more about this as we roll out different parts of this agenda, but I think Democrats have been talking about what we can do to raise folks’ income, to rebuild the middle class of our country [and] to deal with escalating cost of prescription drugs.”

“That is not my position, number one. Number two, what we’re talking about here is raising people's incomes, reducing the cost of expenses [and] creating good path ways for careers and job training. Democrats have always supported comprehensive immigration reform that will fix our broken immigration system. Millions of people are here and the question is what do we do about that. Immigrants add tremendously to the economy of our country. The ten million people who are here need a pathway to citizenship. We want an economy that works for every hard-working American, that raises people incomes [and] will reduce the cost in their lives. We also want comprehensive immigration reform [and] there's a bipartisan bill supported by Republicans and Democrats. I do not accept the fact that immigrants who have come to this country for the same reasons my great-grandfather came, to build a better life for their families, are a drain on society, in fact they contribute enormously to the economy of our country. Immigration reform has to happen, it should be done in a bipartisan way [and] it should be comprehensive. There's a piece of legislation that will do it, that's how we should approach it.”

“I think it is absolutely essential that Democrats make it very clear what we stand for, what we are willing to fight for, what we will achieve [and] what we will accomplish on behalf of working families if we are given the responsibility of leadership. I think that's what this agenda does. We should absolutely have policies that support American citizens. It's an integrated economy. We have to fix our broken immigration system by having comprehensive reform, which both Republican and Democrat support, but we can’t get a vote on it.”